William Shakespeare: King Henry VI, Second Part

ACT III. 1. SCENE I. The Abbey at Bury St. Edmund's. (continued)

[Exeunt all but Queen, Cardinal Beaufort, Suffolk
and York; Somerset remains apart.]

QUEEN.
Free lords, cold snow melts with the sun's hot beams.
Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,
Too full of foolish pity, and Gloster's show
Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile
With sorrow snares relenting passengers,
Or as the snake roll'd in a flowering bank,
With shining checker'd slough, doth sting a child
That for the beauty thinks it excellent.
Believe me, lords, were none more wise than I--
And yet herein I judge mine own wit good--
This Gloster should be quickly rid the world,
To rid us from the fear we have of him.

CARDINAL.
That he should die is worthy policy,
But yet we want a colour for his death,
'T is meet he be condemn'd by course of law.

SUFFOLK.
But, in my mind, that were no policy.
The king will labour still to save his life;
The commons haply rise to save his life,
And yet we have but trivial argument,
More than mistrust, that shows him worthy death.

YORK.
So that, by this, you would not have him die.

SUFFOLK.
Ah, York, no man alive so fain as I!

YORK.
'T is York that hath more reason for his death.--
But, my lord cardinal, and you, my Lord of Suffolk,
Say as you think, and speak it from your souls,
Were 't not all one an empty eagle were set
To guard the chicken from a hungry kite,
As place Duke Humphrey for the king's protector?

QUEEN.
So the poor chicken should be sure of death.

SUFFOLK.
Madam, 't is true; and were 't not madness, then,
To make the fox surveyor of the fold?
Who being accus'd a crafty murtherer,
His guilt should be but idly posted over,
Because his purpose is not executed.
No; let him die, in that he is a fox,
By nature prov'd an enemy to the flock,
Before his chaps be stain'd with crimson blood,
As Humphrey, prov'd by reasons, to my liege.
And do not stand on quillets how to slay him.
Be it by gins, by snares, by subtlety,
Sleeping or waking, 't is no matter how,
So he be dead; for that is good deceit
Which mates him first that first intends deceit.